"23 Things" is Spreading

Well I've been playing with some of the different things that we had to do over the past couple of months and it just seems to keep getting better. My husband is now taking part on our 23 things (he loves to explore the recommended award winning sites on Library 2.0) and he keeps showing me what he's discovered. I think it's amazing how much this has benefited so many people who don't even work for the library. I've shared these sites with my family members (extended) and friends who have computers and, actually, some of my cousins who are in college are planning to use these sites (making up their own wiki's, the podcasts, audio books, Zoho etc.)

Maybe we should have a library program that goes over some of these sites with our patrons. Imagine how much they would be able to use some of these things.

My Final Thoughts on "MY 23 THINGS"

I've really enjoyed going to all the different sites. I'm sure if it wasn't for this exercise I wouldn't have explored the vast amount of web sites that I did over the past 2 months. While I may not use some of them I have discovered that a few will definitely be in my "Favorites" folder for easy access. I'm also excited about the Wiki sites since my kids are not familiar with these and I think I have a handle on it now (one upmanship is big in my family where computer technology and internet technology is concerned). Flikr, Photobucket, Google Docs. and a few others are things that I will share with my extended family members (I think everyone will be getting a flicker calendar for christmas this year...haha). I had a lot of fun and I've learned a lot (but then I love different technology anyway...just not something that makes me put things in my ears). My next project is to learn how to download my MP3 files into my MP3 player. I have a ton of them on my computer that I need to get off to make space. I think I'll ask for a different set of ear thingies so I can listen to it (maybe for Christmas...hope I don't get a flicker calendar from anyone!!!).

Audio Books

Not a real fan of audio books that are downloadable. I guess I haven't had a need for them so far...I don't have a CD player in my car (20 years old) and I really hate using earphones (phobic about my ears and putting things in them ever since I jammed an eraser in my ear at 7 years old). I know I could just download them on my computer and listen over the speakers but you really need to hear the noise level in my house to understand why that won't work well (3 TV's usually playing along with music on the other computer, phones ringing, etc.). Yes, it's quite noisy. The Project Gutenburg site was interesting and had quite a few titles (especially the Dickens titles) that were downloadable but I didn't understand the difference in the sizes and why there were such vast differences. I guess I'm just tech challenged when it comes to this type of thing.

Podcasting - Exploring the "New World"

This site was quite interesting. I've become familiar with podcasting because I listen to news programs on Sunday morning and alot of the time their shows are on the web. It's a help when you miss a program and you're up till one in the morning anyway with nothing to do (long story).

Anyway, I didn't know about the Merlin sites and how wonderful they were. I particularly liked the Denver Public Library - Stories for Kids site (even though it didn't have as much as I had hoped it would, it was easy to navigate and the podcast were smooth and clear). I also liked the Westerville Public Library site. The Westerville site was cool because it offered regular books with the reading level attached in the preview sections and it also offered audio books. The Language Learning link was of particular interest since so much has been in the news about multi-cultural language breakdown and the scarce amount of books in libraries for the different ethnic populations of our country. Definitely a recommended site in my opinion.

The Sandbox - Uncovering Hidden Treasures

Well I added my favorite all time comic strips to the Maryland Libraries Sandbox and I also linked my blog to the page of "Favorite Blogs" page. It was kind of neat but I had some trouble with it. I do like PBWiki as it seems simple to use. I would like to start one for receipes and have people add to it. I love to try new dishes and would be interested in getting ideas from all over. When I have time I'm going to try to do this.

There are so many uses the library could implement with this type of technology. I can envision a story time idea page with themes, finger plays, rhymes and booklists. I can also envision monthly book club discussions and maybe even library tech tips that work in the stacks. Possibilities are endless.

YouTube - "MyTube, Anybody's Tube..."

I'm wondering if this is what they mean by everyone will have 15 minutes of fame? Some interesting things on this site. Not too sure if I'm sold on it or not. The 70's commercials were funny and neat and of course my husband did like the 60's music videos. We've bookmarked that one for him. He's actually coming into the 21st century (I have hope for him yet).

Web 2.0 awards - Nifty Site

So many neat things on this site. I actually love, (and I mean LOVE) the ARCAPLAY site. I'm into games on the web when I have nothing better to do (which I haven't had time for anything for the past 3 months (long story). But the ARCAPLAY site with so many games was definitely a fun site and a stress reducer. I've bookmarked it on my home computer and I've recommended it to my friends (one is Meg's friend who is housebound because of lukemia...he gets bored and there's not much to do after 6 months of sitting at home). Of course I also love my Flickr account and my Meebo account is always being used (it seems I can get in touch with Meg much easier during the day when I'm on Meebo).

My husband was looking at this site (wondering what it is) and saw the "music" section. Well we tried both "Pandora" and also "Last.fm". Way cool sites. You just type in the genre of music you like (or a group that you like) and it creates a radio station with "your type of music". God is this neat. I've bookmarked both sites and my husband is definitely going to keep me (he's discovered after 31 years of marriage that I'm "way cool" too.) This Awards site is such a wonderful site to find different things on. I've bookmarked this site to come back to when I have even more time to explore.